


mazduj

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: OTP: I am doing this for myself (Mehrunissa / Padmavati fics, Padmaavat) [2]
Category: Padmaavat (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexuality, Denial, F/F, F/M, Golden Girls AU, M/M, Oneshot, Period-typical Biphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Once, Mehrunissa had demanded to know what her husband saw in Malik Kafur.“It’s like wielding a sword in both hands -- in case one is injured, the other still works. I’m simply rather more versatile than most. Don’t you practice your embroidery with both hands?” Alauddin had only replied.A look at Mehrunissa’s attempt to come to terms with her husband’s -- and her own -- bisexuality. Set in Avani’s Golden Girls AU.mazduj (Arabic): double





	mazduj

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Avani’s Golden Girls AU where Mehrunissa escapes with Ratansen and Padmavati, but Mewar still falls, and Padmavati, Mehrunissa, and Nagmati flee into exile.

Once, Mehrunissa had demanded to know what her husband saw in Malik Kafur.

“It’s like wielding a sword in both hands -- in case one is injured, the other still works. I’m simply rather more versatile than most. Don’t you practice your embroidery with both hands?” Alauddin had only replied.

Mehru shook her head, unsure whether he intended the question to be mocking. Her mother’s untimely death had meant her education and interest in the womanly arts never went beyond the basics. “But what does your left hand offer that your right hand does not?” She pressed.

It was one thing if he took a mistress, or even another wife -- Mehru herself had had many stepmothers -- but for him to find whatever she lacked, in a _man_ …

“Isn’t it like looking into a mirror? How can you find your own reflection so pleasing?”

The Sultan had smirked, and too late she realized her folly: of course he would find his own reflection the most glorious sight in the world.

Truly, though, Malik was a mirror for the Sultan, showing him exactly what he wanted to see. He had to be one, if he wished to survive in this new Delhi.

But far be it from the Empress to pity a slave who tumbled her husband.

* * *

Now Mehrunissa is no Empress and even lower than a slave: a fugitive and a traitor. Nagmati and Padmavati are widowed Queens, which in Rajputana apparently amounts to the same thing. Now all of them are grateful to find accomodation, and more importantly, anonymity, in this cottage tucked away on the outskirts of Delhi.

Padmavati managed to snag a bow and quiver of arrows as they were fleeing from Chittor, and she sets out almost every day into the forest to hunt for their dinner. It provides them with a constant source of food, and Mehru is glad of it.

But even on days when there is no need to go hunting, Padmavati still practices shooting arrows, handcrafting a makeshift range for herself.

“I’m afraid marriage left my archery skills quite rusty,” she says when Nagmati fusses about the extra trouble, “and I’m sure you have no desire to see us all starve.”

In reality, though -- “It reminds me of home,” she confides to Mehru, in the times when they are alone. Bit by bit, she shares her memories of Singhal: loamy earth beneath her feet and greenery everywhere; the long-flowing tunics and trousers; year-round mist, heavy and humid.

She does not speak of Ratensen, but it confirms to Mehrunissa what she suspected even in the dungeon, that Padmavati felt suffocated by her husband, with all his notions of honor and nobility and ridiculous inaction. She is sorry that the King of Mewar is dead, for the instability and uncertainty that his death left in his wake, and for the pain it caused to Padmavati’s heart, but as for the man himself? Mehru would happily spit on his ashes.

* * *

Padmavati practices nocking arrows with both hands -- “Our great Arjuna was able to shoot ambidextrously, so why shouldn’t I?” -- and Mehru remembers _Would it not be far more practical to wield a pair of swords?_

Practicality, Mehrunissa knows nothing of, but she does know this: the evenings she spends on the cottage roof, the sunset wind in her hair, watching Padmavati down below take aim, her hair plastered to her furrowed forehead by perspiration, her lip bit in concentration -- she would suffer it all again, all she has lost, just for this moment.

Alauddin still dwells in the deepest, most primal part of her heart, in the part of her that is no more than Jalaluddin Khilji’s pampered daughter who would shake her head and smile at her cousin’s antics. She remembers him still: his irreverent grace, his broad frame and muscular arms that could build as much as they destroyed, the half-growl that entered his voice when he didn’t get what he wanted. She loved him once, and she cannot deny that.

But that does not mean she also cannot appreciate the set of Padmavati’s eyes and chin, her long-limbed stride, her tresses that curl with the heat. She never would have dared admit such a thing even to herself, in the zenana. But this Mehrunissa, who willfully committed treason and fled two sanctuaries, thinks she understands now something of what Alauddin meant, and when Padmavati glances up, Mehru does not turn away, blushing, but simply nods for her to continue.


End file.
